As Winter and Shutter tried to get the little filly to relax, she took one look at Shutter and screamed

"The medicine made him short!!!!" Crying even harder into Winter's coat, she began hyperventilating, "Mm- my name is Sunny Teardrop....my daddy is gone, he was a lab pony....I don't know what happened to him, he said he had to go find his friend but he never came back!!!" Sunny bawled while the others went about their business.

Petal examined the dead brute and detected a disproportional amount of muscle mass and alot of needle marks...

Trails meanwhile began talking to the well-dressed ponies...

[SPEECH CHECK FAILED]

"Yea ...you know what, I don't think so... Rich is dead, we aren't taking you anywhere...tell you what, down that other hallway is Madame Loom's shop, go and destroy the Arcana she's been holding out....and then maybe we can help each other out....The Agent doesn't like strangers, so you better be become friends...fast..."

Lightning took a quick glance at the filly off to the side before turning back to look at the other ponies. He didn't trust them. Not one bit. Despite Trails' attempts to make friends, they didn't seem very inviting. Lightning, in response to the others lowering their weapons, forced himself to relax his body and put his weapon away also. With those Tommy guns pointed at them, they were sadly outgunned. The pegasus would look towards Trails, wondering what the stallion was going to do next.

Winter gave Shutter a sympathetic look and hoped he didn't take to much offense to what Sunny had said. She was clearly scared for her father and worried of... something that Winter didn't yet understand. She once again returned her full attention to Sunny as she cried into her coat. It seemed the others had the newly arrived ponies handled so she could afford to make sure Sunny was fully cared for at this moment. "Shhhh" she soothed as she embraced the filly again, bringing her closer to herself, "Don't worry, I'm sure your father is fine.. how about we go and find him ? would you like that ?" she said, offering a soft smile before she nuzzled the filly gently. "Such a beautiful little girl. I bet you have a lovely smile, can I see it ?" she said, using simple medical psychology to try and bring the filly to a much calmer, happier state. Her heart ached for the filly when she said about her father... and she couldn't help but think of the odds on surviving down here. But she would never allow herself to say or show her doubt. This required a softer touch.. and fortunately that played straight into Winter's hooves.

Rough Sketch attempted to push the body off of him, frowning slightly at Petal Shard as he did so.

"...yes I know the corpse on top of me is interesting, you...but could you at least have helped me out here?" grunted Rough Sketch as he shunted the body off of him, having struggled for a moment with the (literally) dead weight. That was when he noticed the armed ponies speaking with Happy Trails and the others. His ear flicked as he listened to the conversation, seeming interested. That, and the bawling filly, kept his attention.

He approached Happy Trails and stood beside him, glancing from him to the three ponies armed with submachineguns.

"...excuse me but...do you three happen to know her?" he said, indicating the filly that Winter Bell and Shutter were attempting to comfort with a mildly concerned expression.

After the...creature was taken care of, Ashen, prism rifle hovering in front of his chest, turned towards the three recently arrived ponies while other tended to the filly. Trails attempts to convince these new ponies that they could be trusted seemed to fail, and now they’d need to do something for them if they wanted to get anywhere with them.

Considering that they were now most likely going to directly deal with this ‘Arcana’ Filthy Rich mentioned, he decided to inquire more about it. “What exactly is this ‘Arcana’? We’ve only heard that it’s a highly addictive mutagen, what exactly does it mutate?” he glanced over at the creature. “And I assume ‘Arcana’ had something to do with that?” He questioned, managing to convey all of that in his unsettling, flat and emotionless manner.

Shutter felt a twinge of pain in his chest when the filly pointed out his size...it was a slightly sensitive issue with him, and he didn't like to discuss it too much...but hey, she probably didn't mean any offense, she's scared witless after all.

"...Aha...no, I'm just...naturally short..."

He mumbled, glancing away for a moment...Wait a second, medicine? That struck Shutter as possibly being important to ask about, and he turned back towards the filly.

Ale walked over to winter and the filly, he figured the other could handle our new "freinds", plus he wanted to be further back should a firefight break out. Crouching down to her level to seem less threatening, he begain to examine the filly for any wounds or abnormalities. "Are you hurt sunny?" Ale asked with general concern in his voice, "were's your father?"

Trails was no child psychologist, so he'd leave that to the maternal instincts Bell was letting ooze all over the filly. For now he was treating her as a bio hazard, running out of a room where there was a highly mutated pony? No way in Tartarus was he wrapping her up. He instead was going to focus on getting these heavily armed ponies' guns aimed at mutual enemies.

"I'll go and talk to Madame Loom then, thank you kindly for the tip. But first can you explain that mutated fucker back there," Trails jerked his head back at the corpse, "and explain how the whole Filthy Rich situation? As I said we're not from here, and plan on getting out ASAP." Trails sized up the agents again when he was done giving his spiel, looking for weakness of course, but more to see if they were the honest kind.

Sunny's crying wails turned into soft sobs as Winter managed to comfort the frightened filly. Sunny's blue coat, contrasted with the swirls of oranges and yellows in her mane.

"That filly...heck we don't know...she looks a bit familiar though...might've seen her on a billboard or something....I think her father was one of the Arcana eggheads...." The Agent frowned as he tried to recall an old detail he'd long forgotten...

"Hmm yea I think so...her dad was one of the ones who worked on Arcana...that shit that turned everypony into those..." the agent aimed his head towards the dead brute.

"..Those splicer dregerts ovah there. You know rewrites genetics and all that using an arcanic base template derived from unicorn magic, but uses seahorse arcofluids as a delivery system ....but I mean you must know this already...anyway I suggest you get a leg on, ...like I said, this is Agent's territory, and he likes his friends tough...So I suggest you go kick som Splicer Flanks and then I'll take you someplace to talk to Agent, he'll keep you ponies....and your filly safe, you have my word....as for Filthy Rich, all we know is he's dead, thats all I can say fer myself, but the Agent might have more"

"We'd be glad to take you up on that splicer ass kicking job, first two things: one you shake on that promise, I'm not taking my ponies anywhere without a guarantee of safe passage after we do this, and two point us in the right direction for said ass kicking." Trails smirked and extended his hoof, glad to meet some ponies face to face he felt somewhat sure of. How could you trust a dead buck, especially when he called himself Filthy Rich?

"Hold on, hold on. About her, the filly. Perhaps she should go with you now - she would be safer. Having an emotionally unstable foal come along is a disaster waiting to happen. She should go with you, back where she can be safe." said Rough Sketch, throwing heavy emphasis on the last word.

"Regardless if she belongs here or not, we can reunite her with her father later...if he's still alive. What matters for her now is that she can be safe."

Rough Sketch nodded briefly and trotted away, letting Happy Trails finish his discussion with the three ponies. Making his way over to the filly, Winter Bell, and Shutters, he kept a kind, friendly demeanor.

Lightning watched quietly as Trails and Sketch worked out a deal with the Agents. Despite a rough first impression, it seemed that they, maybe, could be trusted after all. At least Trails feels that way. Besides, taking a young filly into a battle is probably the dumbest thing anypony could do. He would walk over to Shutter, Winter, the filly, and now, Sketch. The pegasus would look down at the filly, starting to calm down from Winter's presence before turning back to Sketch. Taking as quietly as he could so the young filly wouldn't hear, Lightning would say, "I hope this works out well..."

"Same here, same here...say, I didn't catch your name before. You are...?" inquired Sketch, letting the question trail off, glancing between him and the filly, who was calming down. Perhaps getting her to safety would be easier than he thought.

Winter growled slightly at Sketch's insensitive remark about the little fillies father. She had just calmed her down, the last thing she needed was Sunny to be getting upset over the possibility of her father being dead. She looked from Flash to Sketch and frowned ever so slightly, "Before that I think it's best we ask what she wants and really consider this option carefully... I don't know what is going through both your minds right now but we are dealing with a child's life here. We are at the bottom of an ocean with hostile mutated ponies with strange sane ponies in suits cutting us deals... and you think it's safe to hand over a child based on good faith" she said slightly annoyed that they weren't thinking this through that thoroughly. She understood the perks of having the child go with them but she was still far from trusting these ponies. She sighed as she was silently wishing Cross was here... he would know. She looked down at the filly and smiled, "What do you think Sunny, would you be ok to go with them ?" she asked. Of course the fillies response would only factor a little in her decision but she needed to gather at least some opinion on the right call here.

Petal Shard had been only half-listening to the conversation between the two ponies when her ears pricked at the mention of genetic engineering. Situation: Subjects Lead Pony and Lead Agent conversation regarding group affiliation agreement. Conclusion: Irrelevant. Lead Agent disclosing information on genetic alterations regarding corpse: Possibly useful. Corse of action: Further analysis of corpse.

Petal Shard extracted her knife and began skinning the decapitated cadaver, carefully examining the muscular structure beneath the hide. She took a moment to note the relations of he musculature to the skeletal structure before removing the muscles covering the abdominal reign and chest cavity. With the inner organs exposed she first examined the organs of the abdominal area, taking each out and examining them carefully before discarding them to make room to excavate the chest cavity and the organs contained within. Petal Shard finished her detailed analysis of the dead creature by removing the heart, lungs and other organs of the chest reign and examining them closely as she did. Throughout the rudimentary dissection Petal Shard took special note of any abnormalities and/or anomalies she found as she went.

Meanwhile...Petal Shard had taken time off from her busy schedule to perform an autopsy on the dead brute splicer. However, while she couldn't manage to find anything (low rolls) noticeable about the rest of the brute's body, she did however, find a massive amount of small cancerous tumors in several bodily organs, which also appeared, aside from the heart to be undergoing massive somatic deterioration and had been losing function after a long stretch of time.

*BWOOooom* For some unknown reason, all the lights went off and the entire group was now enwrapped in darkness. The agents looked about as well but couldn't find any answers either. Luckily though the glow of the ocean still filled the room by enough that they could see the way around them but there was still the dark hallway that would eventually lead them up to Madame Loom's shop they still needed to worry about

Petal Shard scowled at the corpse before her, “nothing” she grumbled to herself. The autopsy had revealed nothing of significance save that the engineering process was either flawed, didn’t not account for the subjects longevity or...

"I..." Rough Sketch began, looking at the filly and Winter Bell. Then the lights cut out. He forgot all about them for the moment, moving past them to level his firearm towards the shop. He glanced behind him, after waiting for a few moments to ensure nothing was about to bash through the wall like the abomination had.

"...does this happen often?" he inquired to no one in particular.

The filly clearly didn't trust him...he was a "bad pony". He wondered what he had done wrong. Tone? Choice of words? Or perhaps it was just that Winter seemed so much more comforting to her.

So, he'd leave it to her.

But there was no way he was going to approve if the foal followed them.

Winter sighed as she thought for a moment. There was no denying that whatever they had to do was likely going to be dangerous. But she just couldn't bring herself to leave Sunny alone with the, especially when it was obvious the filly had found comfort from her. She looked to the lead pony and asked, "Is there any way we can both go with you. Whatever you want us to do is probably not safe for her... and no offense but I don't know you enough that I can trust you on the basis of 'good faith' " she said honestly. It was a tough decision and it would obviously be endangering herself should these ponies have different agendas to the ones they were letting on. But when children were involved the whole situation changes in her mind... call it instinct. The lead Agent looked in thought for a second before nodding, "Very well, you can come with us" he said.

Ale tuned to winter, "you know i have to agree with the little one, somthing seems off about these "agents". He said to winter. "you sure you want to go with them?" He asked concerned for the safty of both her and the filly.

"Alright, Bell stay safe." Trails said curtly before turning to the group. He didn't like moving on without a medic, especially in such an obviously hostile environment. "Everypony else we're going to be stiking with the same basic formation, heavy in front, marksmen in back, everypony else in the middle. We get this taken care of and we can get some real answers." Trails took his position in front of the rag tag squad and walked to the shops the agents had directed him to, eager to get out of this combat zone and to the agents safe haven soon.

As the group traveled down the dark hallway, they managed to avoid running into trouble...but as soon as the emerged, their faces were flashed with a dancing blue light, and strong beat was playing....It appeared they they had walked into a room with a huge catwalk and 2 stories worth of seats, they however remained on the first floor and there were no visible stairs. The floor seemed to be scattered with figures, but on closer inspection they seemed to be distorted clay cast figures, alot of them frozen in horrified expressions, both ponies and splicers alike...

The Catwalk

While the floor and the seats were covered in dark blue rave lights, the entire catwalk was illuminated with an even brighter white light. Down over by the stage, a bedraggled tired mare was surrounded by dresses, and continued sewing as the group spotted her, she turned around at the source of white and screamed.

"I'm done!!! please!!!" she appeared like she had been crying for quite some time.

The mare tried getting up but it appeared the lower half of her body was stuck in a plaster...

"PHOTO YOU SICK FUCK!!! LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!"

"NEIN!" The voice replied

*BOOM* a furious explosion filled the stage

"Yeeessss! ...Now CAMRA!!!" out of the corner of the room a splicer came through the door, holding what appeared a strange device with a lens and began crawling all over the catwalk...adsorbing the bloody and burnt mess left by the mare previously there...